Lost Child
by Writegirl
Summary: FOcuses on Jubilee after Zero Tolerance. Warning: contains graphic imagery of rape and abuse. Finally Finished!!!!!
1. Default Chapter

Title: Lonely Child

Title: Lonely Child

Disclaimers: None of the characters belong to me with the exception of Lila. All others are the property of Marvel INC. There, I said it, so don't sue.

It was there again, the heart beat. It wouldn't go away, no matter how many times she watched the walls and practiced the meditations that were supposed to help. Nothing helped. Didn't they understand that? No matter how many times she told them it didn't they insisted that it would, if only she would let it. Right. Just like when mom told her that there weren't really monsters under the bed to help her sleep at night. But Mom had been wrong too, and the monsters were real.

'Shut up shut up shut up,' she chanted, thinking of songs, poems, even the weird sayings that the professor spouted off sometimes when he thought no one was really listening to him. Over it all she could still hear it, same volume, same pitch. Slowly driving her mad. Doctors sometimes told mothers to place clocks in their babies rooms or cribs to help them sleep, because it sounded slightly like the heartbeat that they had become used to over the past nine months. This however, was different. It wasn't comforting. It wasn't meant to be comforting.

Turning over onto her side, Jubilee looked at the clock. 3am, too early to claim that she simply couldn't stay in bed any longer. Tick…tick…tick…

'Stop it, stop it, its just in your head, that's all it is just in your head, tomorrow you can talk to the professor and maybe this time he will listen when you tell him that its not working…'

Lies, empty words that she told herself every night for the past week. It would always be tomorrow, because today was too painful, too surreal for her to say anything just yet, and the ticking continued to plague her night after night.

***Just something to keep you company*** he had said with that odd smile that really wasn't a smile. Before leaving her that first time, broken and bloody in a cell with no walls, nothing but sheer whiteness, unbroken, cold. The ticking had come from everywhere, swallowing the silence that she could let hold her, keep her sane. Just another trick to break down her defenses, to make her want to tell him what she knew. Another nail in her coffin, she had thought, laying on the cold floor, letting the ticking wash over her, telling herself she could ignore it, she would ignore it.

Then days had stretched into weeks, and then months, and still it continued, never stopping. She could hear it when they were 'questioning' her, hear it when they dragged her kicking and screaming from the cell, hear it when she finally let exhaustion take over. Constant… always there…

Throwing off the thin sheet that she had tossed over herself, Jubilee rose and looked out the window. When she had been rescued she insisted that she stay at the mansion, that she would feel better there. It was more of a home to her after all, wasn't it? A place where she had finally found another family to take the place of the one that had been stolen from her all those years ago. A sanctuary. Funny how someone can be so wrong. Every wall she saw, every person she talked to reminded her of the person she had been and would never be again. Someone who had died with a strangers hands on her, choking her, ripping away what she had always thought hers to give.

Rape. Such a small simple word to stand for something so vile. Those had been her thoughts when he had finally left her. How could it possibly contain all the hate, the anger, the since of nothingness that had engulfed her? An unassuming word for an unassuming crime.

When they found her she tried to pretend that it hadn't happened, that she had been rescued in time. Wolverine had smelled them on her, a small trace of a scent, but she had thanked whatever god still listened to her prayers that they had decided to bath her that morning, even as she dreaded what they needed her clean for. Then the questions. Hank in his odd way trying to be as neutral as possible, hiding his feelings behind the cool doctors exterior. The professor and Jean trying to help, sending her positive emotions, telling her that she was safe. She had turned away their gentle probes, the machine that Bastion had used on her gave her an immunity to low level probes, they said, both trying hard to keep the worry out of their voices. 'I'm alright, alright, Ill be okay', it had become her mantra, her guardian, and for a while, they had believed her.

Until that morning.

The professor had found her in the kitchen, curled up in a tight ball, tears mingling with the blood that pooled around her. She had screamed when he touched her, trying to get away, confusing the moment with another one that had played and replayed in her mind for weeks. In that moment all her defenses were down and he had seen everything, knew everything, even the things she'd tried to keep from herself. She could hear his mental cry of alarm, felt his arms as he lifted her (funny how she never realized exactly how strong he was) and headed for the Medlab, telling Beast he was on his way and giving a diagnosis. Vaguely she remembered seeing somewhere in his office a metal for bravery in combat during the Korean War. She meant to ask him about it a thousand times, but it never seemed to be the right moment. She wondered how many times he had done this.

And he hadn't even minded the blood.

All the way there he kept telling her she would be all right, calming her cries, telepathically reducing her pain, even though doing so was costing him greatly. She'd looked up, seeing the pain written in his face, watched the tears that slid down his cheeks, dropping onto her head. Knowing that they were for her, not the headaches that seemed to tear him apart whenever he tried to use his powers.

Never saw him cry before either.

Then nothing. Waking up clean, the smell of the blood gone, an IV in her arm. And she'd panicked. Sparklers, firecrackers, they were all that she had, but they proved enough. Damaged equipment flew everywhere, she heard voices, Jeans frantic mental urgings, telling her that she was safe, that everything was alright, but she was beyond that, and only a telepathic bolt had stopped her powers. The next time she opened her eyes the faint beep of a genoshan collar sounded in her ears. A worried and haggard looking Logan sitting by her bed, holding her hand. And in that moment she realized they knew, and nothing would be the same again.

And that nothing would be okay again.

**Don't slink away yet little girl**

'No no no no no this is not happening this is not happening…'

You sure this stuff is supposed to work, man? She looks sick…

A snort, **Yeah, head guy gives it to her all the time, makes her more agreeable, besides we wouldn't even need it if Pete weren't so squeamish…**

'Why are you doing this I'm a person would you want someone to do this to your sister your mother why can't you see that…'

This isn't right man, she's just a kid, cant be more than seventeen, Bastion'll kill us if something happens to her…

'Hate them hate them hate them too much of cowards to do anything hope he does kill you…'

What? Afraid he'll fire you for messing with his piece of patch? Long as we don't kill her…

"Jubilee…"

'God get off me get off me this is not happening you hear me this is all just a dream and you'll wake up and everything will be alright and Wolvie will be there you'll see…'

"…Jubilee…wake up…its okay…no one here will hurt you…"

Slowly the entreaty broke through the haze of the nightmare. Pain, it was the first thing Jubilee noticed when she stopped floating somewhere above the rest of her body. Pain…and an odd emptiness that she couldn't place.

"Professor?" her voice was hoarse, throat scratchy and sore. Before she could say anything a glass of water was being placed to her lips. Slowly, she sipped it, watching him warily, cursing the fear that she felt coursing through her. He would never hurt her, she knew it, but she couldn't stop the tremor that went through her.

"How are you feeling, Jubilee?" The voice was soft, soothing, comforting. Turning, she saw a swath of red hair as Jean leaned over her, felt a cool hand encompass her own.

"Tired," she answered, then looked around, "Where's Wolvie?"  


"Resting," Charles answered his voice the same tone as Jeans, "He was up for almost three days straight."

Jubilee was puzzled. What would make Logan stay up that long, unless Jean was parading in her underwear for the duration, she couldn't think of anything else. The man caught a nap anytime he could get away with it. "What for?"  


She watched with a feeling of dread as a look passed between the two people. Someone else might have missed it, but living with the two telepaths for years gave her an advantage. It was one of those what-are-we-going-to-say-now-looks.

At that moment several things became clear. One of which being that she was in the infirmary, not her own room, and she was in a hospital gown. Second, there was an IV that attached to what looked like two different solutions, both dripping steadily, along with a heart monitor. Something must have happened to her, something she couldn't remember.

Desperately she searched her memory, trying to find out what was wrong. She remembered waking up that morning, cramps practically killing her. She'd grimaced when she saw the small smattering of blood on her sheets, a sign that her period was early. 'Should be lucky it came at all, girl" she remembered thinking as she slipped a pad on. Walking into the kitchen looking for the industrial sized Tylenol that was always in the cabinet. Then the pain, so sharp it brought her to her knees, unable to even scream, the wetness that seemed to flow from her…then nothing. Waking up somewhere, panicking, then nothing again.

"What happened?" The words were little more than a whisper, almost lost in the methodic whir of the machines she was hooked to.

"You had a miscarriage," Jean said, her voice still conveying that sense of ease that seemed to permeate Jubilee's bones. "Charles found you in the kitchen almost four days ago."

Jubilee barely heard the rest of the explanation. Miscarriage. Something had been alive inside her, and now it was gone. Was that were this sense of emptiness came from, the loss? Joy and anger raced through her for a moment. Anger that her child was dead before it could even live. And joy, joy because she would never have to wonder who the father was, never have to deal with all the pain that went with bearing and rearing a child from such circumstances. Then nothing, almost as if her emotions decided to shut themselves down.

"Wolvie was with me the whole time?" she asked, her voice hushed and hollow.

She heard the professor sigh, "Yes, he finally fell asleep at the foot of your bed. Hank moved him though. He should be back soon."

She nodded her head, suddenly very tired. "Sleepy," she muttered, settling herself further into the covers. In moments she was asleep.

Charles watched his youngest student for a moment before turning and leaving the room, questions forming in his mind. Jean followed him when she saw Hank pass by, ready to take up his shift and look after the sleeping girl.

" The things people do to children," Charles murmured as he entered his study, Jean following close. "What kind of creatures would be so cruel to a little girl?"

Jean said nothing, sitting in one of the chairs, collecting her thoughts. Like the professor, she had heard Jubilee's dream, watched in horror, unable to change the past. And like him she didn't know the answer to that question.

"How do you think she will take all of this?" Jean asked finally, pushing her long red hair away from her face.

Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose, " I honestly don't know. Jubilee has lived a rather unusual life. An extraordinarily difficult one to be blunt. In the face of her other trials I hope she can do as she always does and takes it in stride." The words sounded cold, even to his ears. In truth, he didn't know how she would respond to this. Not knowing the answer frightened him, for he had seen, in his time as a psychologist, too many young women in the same position, lost, helpless. He knew the classic reactions, ran them through his mind, and prayed that she would be different.

Jeans eyes narrowed slightly at his words, "Take it in stride? She's a seventeen-year-old girl who has been repeatedly raped and is now lying in the Medlab recovering from a miscarriage! What the hell do you mean take it in stride?" She felt her temper rising, but did nothing to stem it. His words were cold, unfeeling. Her temper fled though, when she saw the look in his eyes. They were old, much older than the rest of his face, and extraordinarily sad, even afraid.

"I can tell you what to expect, but I don't know if it applies to Jubilee. I just hope this isn't the straw that breaks her back."

Jean only nodded in agreement before rising. "I better get back. She might panic again if the only one there when she wakes up is Hank."

After she left, Charles floated to his desk, carefully putting away the neglected papers there, making a mental note to himself that they needed to be finished. When his desk was clear he rested his elbows on the smooth oak and cradled his head in his hands.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! He should have known something was wrong beyond what she was telling them. He was suspicious when she declined an examination by Hank, even when going outside their circle for a doctor was suggested. He simply didn't want to know, because then it would make it too real for him. He recalled the moment he steered himself into the kitchen, shivering slightly at the emotions that he'd felt from the room. He couldn't place them, but everything fell into place when he saw her lying there, blood pooling around her.

'My fault, all my fault.' No matter what he had told himself over the past four days, he knew that the cause of the situation lay with him. Bastion would not have wanted Jubilee if he had been more forth coming with the information the man wanted when he was being questioned. Valerie Cooper had prevented the questioning from going too far, and Charles had shuddered when he remembered what theY called 'proper' encouragement. Then the attack, finding Jubilee gone. The frantic search that ensued that seemed to drag on for weeks before the location of the hulkbuster base was discovered.

He'd been relieved when they radioed in, saying they had found Jubilee and was bringing her home. What he saw was a thin, pale, broken image of a girl who was once so full of life that she couldn't sit still. The Shi'ar technology had healed the worst of her wounds, but he saw, everytime he looked at her, that the scars in her mind would never heal.

Then there were the sessions. She had insisted that she was recovering all right on her own, and didn't need anyone ' waltzing around my brain,' as she had said. So instead of psyche counseling, he allowed her to free talk, from anything as mundane as the weather to why it had taken so long to find her. At first the sessions were empty, she sitting in her chair staring out one of the many bay windows of his office, responding in monosyllabic flat tones when he asked her a question. Then, slowly, she began to let him in, telling him odd pieces of information here and there, letting him know that he was helping. Through her he learned of the machinery that had been used to probe her mind, what it felt like, what she saw. He learned of the starvation tactics Bastion used when she appeared to be fighting the memory inducing drugs, the electroshock therapy practiced to 'induce' a charge in her body when she refused to cooperate. 

But she never trusted him with the most painful thing of all.

The worst part of the whole situation was that he honestly believed that this turn of fate had been avoided when Lily had pulled the three of them back in time. Everything else had changed: Onslaught was destroyed before he could be released. The boy killed outside the estate in the time he knew had been rescued by a rather drunk and annoyed Wolverine. The heroes that had given their lives to stop Onslaught were still alive and Franklin Richards was enrolled in the Massachusetts school. Everything had been going fine, until Graydon Creed had been assassinated. It hadn't come out until some weeks after the event that it had been orchestrated by Bastion himself to launch his Operation Zero Tolerance program, but in that time Jubilee had been abducted, young Everett dying trying to protect her, Monet wounded and left for dead.

The search had been frantic, but he had proved to be little help. The hulkbuster base was at a different local than the one he remembered any information he had proven useless when the X-Men had found only an abandoned military instillation. The exposure of the Creed assassination, however, had provided a means to find her. SHIELD had been ordered to find Bastion, and it had taken almost every government favor and more than a few bribes to get the information before SHIELD could. Now Bastion was somewhere in a SHIELD holding zone, awaiting trial.

Shaking his head, clearing it of everything accept the problem at hand, Charles reached for his address book. He knew Jubilee wouldn't be comfortable speaking to him or Jean about what had happened. She had once commented on how wonderful anonymity was when he asked why she spent so much time talking to strangers on the Internet. He knew someone she might be willing to talk to, the only thing he didn't know is if their past together would get in the way.

"Hey Kid,"

The softly spoken words made Jubilee turn to the door, a smile lifting her face when she saw Wolverine standing there in his usual jeans and flannel shirt. She'd kept that image of him in her mind all those months, thought about the softness of the flannel when she hugged him or fell asleep on him during one of their all night movie marathons.

"Hey furball," she answered, "Was wondering when you'd drag yourself out of bed and come see me."

For a moment Logan said nothing, he simply stared at the young woman lying in the hospital bed, too pale against the white sheets. He remembered the first time they had met, when he was staked up and left for dead. Waking up in diapers, a small ,Asian form near him, mumbling about how he was too big an inconvenience for her to be worrying over. Since then they had fought more battles than he cared to remember, shared more pain that any two people had the right to feel in several lifetimes. Now, seeing her like this, made him wonder if they were capable of weathering this storm like they had all the others.

"How ya feelin'?" he asked as he settled into a chair next to the bed, taking one of her small hands in his. They were cold, so he began to rub them lightly, feeling the delicate bones beneath the thin skin.

Jubilee humphed before smiling, "Like I want to take a long ride on your Harley, maybe to Mexico." She sighed, closing her eyes, "A cold Mexican beer and a turkey club with the works sounds like heaven right now."

For a moment Logan was pulled back into memory. It was one of the times when he decided that they needed a break. He'd woken her in the middle of the night, tossed her a duffel bag and told her to start packing. Within the hour they were riding his Harley and heading south. Two weeks of riding and they entered the small coastal village of Leaneda in Southern Mexico. Another two weeks of doing nothing besides sunbathing before they were called home. It was one of the happiest memories he had.

Logan cleared his throat before he spoke again, "So what are they feedin' ya in here?"  


The young woman grimaced before answering, " Hank's in charge of my diet I guess, because all I've been given is 'nutritious' food. Stuff doesn't even have salt in it."

Something in her tone made him look at her more closely. Deliberately taking a deep breath, he allowed the scents of the room to drift over him. Most overpowering was the smell of disinfectant, chemicals, and other unnamed solutions that Henry used in his experiments. Beneath it all he could smell her, and he didn't like it at all. Fear, pain, anger, and a stark, barely contained terror wafted from her in waves. Her scent was also out of whack, a result from not eating properly, he guessed, added to her recent miscarriage.

"I'll see if I cant sneak in a burger or something when blue boy over there isn't lookin'" he gestured with his head to where Henry sat, examining another blood sample and making notes in the file in front of him.

"I heard that," Hank said, turning around and pinning them both with a stare full of mock severity. "I'll only tolerate one burger a week as long as she's in here," He added before turning back to his work.

Jubilee blinked at the concession, then frowned when she realized why he did it. 'Coddling the poor rape victim,' she thought bitterly, burrowing under the covers to escape the sudden cold that washed over her.

Logan watched her, concern playing in his eyes, "You all right, darlin'" he asked, moving closer.

Jubilee laughed, the sound cold and lifeless, "Well, lets see Logan: I've been kidnapped, tortured, rescued after months of imprisonment, subjected to more mental probes than Joseph, and miscarried. Not to mention the fact that Everett is dead because of me. What do you think?" With that she pulled her hand from his and turned, leaving him looking at her back.

Logan sat there for a moment, before whispering, "If you ever need to talk about anything girl, anything at all, you know where ta find me."

Jubilee turned, the glare she pinned him with making him shiver, "Thanks but no thanks." Then she turned away. 

Not saying anything, Logan rose and left, but not before he heard the light, almost inaudible sound of a sob.

"Lila McNeil's office, may I help you?"  


Charles Xavier sat at his desk filled with apprehension. The last time he had spoken with this woman was more than ten years ago, when they both decided that if they ever saw the other, it would be too soon. Now he sat, willing himself to say something before the receptionist hung up. He hated these sudden moments of doubt that he felt more often, now that he was making a conscious effort to sort through everything that came through him, not simply shove it somewhere to be forgotten.

"Hello?"

The question was enough to bring him out of the semi-analytical state he had slipped into, "Yes," he answered, "My name is Charles Xavier, I would like to speak with Dr. McNeil."

"Please hold on for a moment."

Waiting. He always hated it, though he had learned that everyone had to wait for something at one time or another. It had taken many years before he was able to patiently sit and wait for the slightest bit of information, even if it took weeks to come. Now, as with all his other emotions after the battle with Onslaught, he was unable to exert any real control over his anxiousness. No matter how horrible it became at times, though, he liked it. For the first time in what felt like years, he truly felt like he was living.

"Charles?"

'Her voice hasn't changed at all', he thought. "Lila?"

" Why are you calling?"

The question caught him slightly off guard, though he had expected something of the like. She had always been straightforward. "I have a problem that I would like you help with."

"What? Finally realized that I was right when I told you you were cut off from your own emotions?"

Charles laughed at that, "Sorry, someone already helped me with that problem, Lila."

Her muttered "Damn," made him laugh. "So, what is the nature of this problem?"

For a moment Charles said nothing, then asked on impulse, "Can we meet somewhere and talk about this?"

"When?"

"As soon as possible."

Charles heard her sigh, then, "Hold on for a minute," He heard her muttering, though he couldn't make anything out, and the sound of paper rustling. "Im free tonight at 8."

Charles nodded, making a note on his ledger, though he doubted he would forget.

"Where is this meeting going to take place?"  


Charles barely thought a moment before answering, "Michael's."

"I'll be there." Then the line went dead.

Charles set the phone down at steepled his fingers. Lila was never one to jump at dinner like she did. Usually it took several minutes before they were able to make a compromise. 'That was ten years ago, old man' he thought as the hover chair glided out of the room, 'Who knows how she's changed?'

"You're condition is improving, Jubilee," Henry said as he checked the IV and changed the solution bag. "Another two or three days and I should be able to let you return to your room, as long as you promise me that you'll rest."

"I can rest when I'm dead, Hank," Jubilee answered, watching the blue furred doctor as he fussed with the tubing. A memory flashed in her mind: being strapped to a table while a woman checked her IV, telling her not to fight the drugs, that it will go easier for her if she didn't…

"Jubilee?"

The question jolted her, and she found herself curled into a ball, eyes squeezed shut with a worried Jean and Hank looking on. Slowly she straightened out, hearing her joints creak as she did. "I'm fine," she whispered, her tongue feeling like a piece of cotton in her mouth, "Just need some water."

She reached for the cup that came floating to her, sipping it slowly. She remembered the first time they had given her water after refusing her for days. She'd drunk it too fast, then vomited it up as the guards watched, laughing. She learned then to take things in moderation, much to their dismay.

"Is their anything you need, Jubes?" Jean asked.

'To be left alone would be nice,' she thought before answering. "Just some time, Jean, that's all."

Nodding, Jean moved to where Hank was standing, and Jubilee heard their hushed voices, though she couldn't understand what they were saying. "Just another day in paradise," she thought before drifting back to sleep.


	2. Helping Hands

Title: Lost Child

Title: Lost Child

Disclaimer: None of the characters with the exception of Lila belong to me. All others are the property of Marvel and whoever else has a claim on them.

Jubilee was staring that the ceiling, wondering when the powers that be would allow her to go back to her own room. She missed it, as odd as it seemed. There was some security with the knowledge of being able to lock herself somewhere, where no one else could just walk in without her knowing. Never mind that half of the people in the house could easily rip the thing off its hinges, not to mention blow it to kindling, they wouldn't unless they thought it absolutely necessary. The professor told them once he was up to his ears with paying for damage done to the mansion because someone was in a tizzy about their relationship.

She shifted, feeling the crisp fresh sheets under her. Hank had allowed her to stand that afternoon for one reason and one reason alone: Because the sheets needed changing. Despite that, she had enjoyed her moments of freedom before she was condemned to lay down again. Thankfully, the IV had been removed, leaving only an ache and a faint red dot to mark its presence. Now she could relax a little more, without having to worry that a wrong move would cause the thing to yank out of her arm.

She was drifting again when she heard the faint sound of the doors opening. Her eyes snapped open immediately, though she didn't stand up. Too many mornings of being kicked for being sluggish to wake were fresh in her mind. The footsteps stopped just short of her bed, and she caught the faint smell of jambalaya. Gambit.

"Gambit know you awake, P'tite," he said, and she heard the faint scrap of a chair as it was pulled closer to the bed. "T'ought you might like something to eat, no?"

The rumbling of her stomach gave her way, and Jubilee turned to face him, "So, whats up, Cajun?"

Gambit set the tray he was carrying on the moveable table before positioning it close enough to Jubilee so that she could sit up and eat. "Not much, wonderin when Remy get his partner in crime back."

Jubilee smiled at that, something that none of them had seen for a very long time. She was remembering when they went on a prank spree against the prank master himself: Bobby. In two weeks they had him almost in tears, and they'd won a free pizza and movie night from him. "You have to talk to Hank on that one. He seems to feel that I can't do anything but lay in bed and collect bedsores." Gingerly, she sniffed at the plate of food, "They give you free reign with this? Or did Storm watch you."

Gambit shook his head, " I snuck into de kitchen early dis mornin just for you."

"Cool." Unlike everyone else, Jubilee loved Remy's cooking, even though it made her eyes water, and on occasion brought about uncontrollable sneezing fits. She ate quickly, wondering what Hank would say if he caught her eating anything but the low salt, high calorie diet he had her on.

"When dey be letting you out a here, Jubes?" Gambit asked as he watched her eat, pleased when the spices brought some color to her cheeks.

"Hank says tomorrow, with regular check ups every other day for a week. Translation of that means in another week, if and only if he has to leave the lab on a Twinkie run."

Gambit nodded. The few times he'd spoken with Hank in the past few days he'd been extremely worried about leaving Jubilee in the lab alone. After some prodding he'd revealed that it was less for some unknown medical emergency suddenly arising than the fact that she would have ready access to sharp objects.

Charles was sitting in Michael's for ten minutes when the small clock in the corner hit 8pm. He'd never believed in being punctual, he felt it was an out. He had believed in being early by at least ten minutes. That gave one just enough time to appear as if they were settled and calm without too much strain.

"If I didn't know you any better, I'd say you were almost fidgeting," 

It took a considerable amount of control of his part to keep from jumping. He knew that voice, better, perhaps, than he had known any in a long time. "Hello Lila," he said without turning.

Charles waited, as first a whit clad arm, then the rest of the woman's body, came into his line of vision. Ten years had passed since he'd seen her, ten years that left almost no mark on the smooth face. It was a plain face, by most standards, with nothing spectacular about the set of the cheekbones. The eyes were perhaps a little too large in a heart shaped face, a light sherry that at times seemed to border on gold. Of average height and build, she could easily disappear in a crowd, with her fair skin and brown hair, that was at the moment pulled up in a rather severe bun.

It was her eyes, however, that startled. While their color was nothing out of the ordinary, the intelligence behind them was. For all her plain exterior, Lila McNeil was not one to be trifled with. They had shared classes in Oxford, both being psychology majors, though she was taking the class more for a lark than anything else. Five years his junior, she had begun her second doctorate in Child Psychology while he was still working on his thesis for his first Ph.D. Vaguely, he recalled their conversations, 'arguments' he corrected himself, that spanned several topics, and as many languages. The most he had been able to supply at the time were five, but she had surpassed him.

"I see you are doing well," Charles said, motioning for her to take the seat across from him.

Lila looked at him dubiously before carefully taking the chair, looking all the while as if she expected it to become a giant snake, " I can say the same for you, Charles." She answered, raising a hand to signal the waiter. "Two scotch's with water chasers," she said before Charles could.

He nodded at the waiter when the young man raised an eyebrow in question, "Still have to prove your abilities, Lila?" he asked teasingly, though there was something of wounded pride behind the words, "I would have thought we were beyond that stage in our relationship."

The look she gave him was comical, " I didn't know that we had sustained a relationship, Charles. Why didn't you alert me to this?"

Score: McNeil 1, Xavier 0, he thought wryly to himself, "You know what I mean."

The silence that enveloped the table lasted until the waiter returned with their drinks. "So, what is that has you desperate enough to ask for my help?"

Charles closed his eyes, settling his thoughts. "There is someone I was hoping you might find the time to help. Female, seventeen."

He could almost see the spark of interest that entered the woman's eyes, "Please continue."

Charles spent the next twenty minutes recanting what he thought Lila needed to know about Jubilee's case, trying to keep anything about the X-Men and her involvement with them to a minimum without saying something that could hinder her sessions with Jubilee later. When he finished, he felt as if he had been put through a mill.

Lila was staring at her scotch thoughtfully, "What makes you think that she would accept my help, when she already rejected yours?" She asked at last.

Charles sighed, " She once told me that the reason she enjoyed talking on the internet was because she didn't have to deal with the people she was speaking with on an everyday basis, they were simply people she could converse with for an hour or two outside of real time. I hope that she would see talking to you as something of a safe alternative to talking to me. Also, I think she would be more comfortable talking to a woman about something of this nature."

Lila nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer, "Its up to her when we begin." She said, "I'll keep my three to four thirty time slot open in case she decides she wants to talk, anytime." She swallowed the remainder of her drink and the chaser before standing, " It was good to see you Charles," she said shortly before walking away without a backwards glance.

Charles sat a few moments longer in Michael's. As deals with the devil went, this one appeared to be relatively painless.

//Jubilee?//

Jubilee awoke at the soft telepathic question, opening her eyes to the dimmed light of the Med Lab. The professor was a good distance away from her, enough so that she felt comfortable without truly thinking he was keeping his distance. A quick glance at the digital clock on the bedside showed that it was a quarter to ten.

"Professor?" she asked, the last vestiges of sleep quickly slipping off her, "What's up?" She watched as the professor slowly approached and sat up, running quick hands through her tousled hair.

The professor smiled reassuringly as he watched her, "There is something that I wanted to discuss with you, and I thought that it would be better to handle this sooner rather than later."

Jubilee turned wary, imperceptibly sinking into the bedsheets, "What?"

Charles saw her physical withdrawal, feeling it somewhere just below his heart, "I was hoping that you would want to talk about your experiences-"

"Look," Jubilee cut in, "I don't want to talk about it with you-"

"You wont have to," Charles cut in. "There is an associate of mine who would like to see you, Jubilee. You sessions with her would be from three to four thirty, whenever you felt like you wanted to talk. Anything you had to say to her would remain between the two of you. Nothing would get back to me or anyone else in this house unless you wanted it to."

Jubilee considered the professor's words. On one hand she felt like if she talked to anyone it would make her memories that much more real and inescapable. On the other hand she desperately wanted to talk to someone who she wouldn't have to look at, who wouldn't be there whenever she turned the corner.

Charles could almost feel the moment the decision was made, "When do we start?"

Two weeks later Jubilee was staring out the window of Lila McNeil's office, watching the subtle swaying of the trees of Central Park. The professor and Hank determined that the only way she could make the long trek into New York was if she had sufficiently healed from her ordeal. The office was high enough to give the sense of being above the chaos of the streets, but not so high that the tranquil park seemed unattainable. The whole office reminded her of the professors, with only a slightly feminine touch. The carpet was a deep, soothing blue, as were the pictures that were thrown seemingly haphazardly around the walls. The office gave a sense of being in someone's home, something that she thought would only want to make a patient talk more.

The whole thing sickened Jubilee within five minutes of sitting down.

They'd had a brief introduction, then sat in silence for ten minutes. Jubilee gave Lila kudos for not trying to push and ask a question. When she froze the professor out he often tried to get the conversation to take another turn, but not this woman. She sat, 'cool as a fuckin cucumber' Jubilee thought as she turned her blue eyes back to the psychiatrist.

"So, what's up with you and the professor?" she asked, testing the waters, "You two an item once or what?"

Lila smiled to herself even though no sign of it showed in her face, at least the child was beginning to come out of her self induced silence, "You could say that, but we decided to part ways."

Jubilee snorted, "You and every other woman in his life." She murmured, though she made sure that her voice was loud enough for the other woman to hear, then louder, "So, what is it that just rubs all his women the wrong way? I mean, he seems like a nice enough guy, nice body, not hard to look at."

" I cant speak for any other women whom Charles might have known, but we were compatible only in social settings."

"Couldn't get it up, could he?"

_That _question caught Lila off guard, and she floundered for the barest of moments, then tightened her resolve. If she wanted to be blunt, fine.

"Actually, that was the least of our problems. The very least. Charles has…stamina, to put it mildly."

Jubilee scowled. She was sure that she'd had the woman pegged right, that she would crack when she threw something like that out. She'd seen her share of what she came to term as 'do-gooders', people who wanted to help but didn't have the slightest clue what the real world was like. Who would crack the first time someone pushed.

"I think its time we tried to focus on why you're here, instead of trying to discomfort me," Lila said when Jubilee turned her head to look out the window once again.

"I'm here because everyone I live with thinks that I'm a mental case," Jubilee answered without taking her eyes from the window.

Lila raised an eyebrow, "I thought you were here to talk about a recent trauma that occurred. Whether or not you are a 'mental case'" she inherited the words with as much bitterness as she could before continuing, "Is something that I am not qualified to say without further analysis." When Jubilee didn't answer, she continued, " I understand that you had a miscarriage a few days ago, and were unaware that you were pregnant."

"You know how I happened to get pregnant?"

"Would you like to tell me?"

Jubilee didn't answer.

For the next week, that was how things progressed, an alternation between the silent treatment and attempting to find a button to press. And Lila had to admit that the woman, for all her youth, as an adept at that particular pastime. Every detail, from the lack of a wedding ring to the colors she chose, became a topic for debate. Tactics, Lila knew, that were meant to keep her attention away from her charge and on anything else.

While Jubilee hunted for things about her to talk about, Lila watched her for insights into her condition. What she had learned from Charles was enough to make a blanket diagnosis, but she needed more than that if she was going to help. She watched as the young Asian woman shied away from males, only slightly, but enough to keep from causally touching them. Even the young blond man who dropped her off was not exempted from this behavior, though he seemed oblivious to it. When he helped her into the car Jubilee looked almost ready to bolt.

Lila sighed. A week, and they were little distance from square one, but she refused to show any signs of lag. She'd seen patients behave this way, had dealt with it in and out of training, and steeled herself. If someone was going to be run down, it wouldn't be her.


	3. De Profundis

"I can still smell them, you know."

The words were spoken so lightly that for a moment Lila wondered if she'd heard them correctly. So far, they had had the average session, Jubilee staring out the window into the park for the better part of the hour. To tell the truth, she had been worried that she would have to begin pushing, ever so lightly, to get anything out of the girl, but, now that she had started talking, she was going to sit and listen.

"Its this weird smell," Jubilee continued, running one hand absently over her ankle, where the faint traces of a barcode still showed beneath the pale skin, "Kind of like stale almonds, or something like that, salty, and just a little sweet." She sighed, "Especially when I'm with people. It kind of comes out of nowhere, drowning out everything." She turned her blue eyes on Lila, their color deepened with emotion, "Can you understand that?"

Lila nodded, "It's a usual reaction to such a traumatizing experience. Being with people, especially those that you don't know, can cause memories to surface that otherwise-"

Jubilee shook her head vehemently, "No. Can you _understand_?" 

'Now or never' Lila said to herself, "yes, I can, probably better than you realize."

"How?"  
Lila leaned back in her wingback, twining her fingers in her lap. "When I was a freshman in high school one of the football players offered to take me home. I jumped in the car, thinking that I could save myself some time. He didn't take me home." She closed her eyes briefly at the memory, "They found me two days later, tied up in an old shack off a main road." She locked her eyes with Jubilee's, " So, as you can see, I do understand what you went through, I've been there before, at least to some extent."

Lila saw the exact moment when she ceased to be an outsider in Jubilee's eyes, and became one of a select few that were insiders, people who knew her pain, "did you get pregnant?"

"No."

Jubilee nodded. "What did the professor tell you about what happened?"

Lila unfocused her eyes as she mentally read over the file she'd been given, "From what I understand, you were kidnapped and held at a facility where they practiced illegal methods to gain your cooperation in their experiments. There was sexual trauma, resulting in you miscarriage. That's the quick and dirty version."

Jubilee turned her eyes back to the window, even though the rain that had begun to fall obscured the few, "They weren't all in on it, not at first. At first it was only the head guy, and he used this stuff, some kind of drug that made me fell like I was floating. He said he didn't want to damage me, that I was too valuable to kill just yet," she shuddered with the memory, hearing Bastions cold voice echo in her ears. "It took two weeks for the rest of them to build up the courage to try and touch me." She rubbed a scar that shown pink against her skin, running from her inner elbow to her wrist, "I wasn't as easy as they thought. The next day one of the doctors threw a fit, not because what had happened, not directly. He said that the drugs they were using would increase the bleeding, and that Bastion needed to keep a leash on his dogs for another few days."

Jubilee laughed, the sound short and humorless, " Can you believe that? He didn't care that they'd raped me and beat the shit out of me, all he cared about was that his research would have to wait until I healed, that part of it at least." She turned to Lila again, "Aren't doctors supposed to take an oath that says do no harm?"  
The starkness of the blue eyes made Lila shudder, "Yes, it's called the Hippocratic Oath. Every doctor takes it. Unfortunately, some people cross their fingers when they do, or the just don't care. I've met more than one doctor who thought that the ends justified the means."

"I think he would have liked this guy. So instead of drugging me again, they started testing my powers, seeing if they could induce a charge in me. Used electricity." The thin hands moved to her temples, then dropped, the eyes once again on the window. "They kept trying different spots, inside and outside. They had this rod they'd put in me. First there was this cold, like the thing was made of ice, then all my muscles would lock up. Couldn't scream, couldn't do anything as the current went through me. Then when it stopped it burned, and they kept doing it. I kept thinking to myself that it was all some kind of nightmare, and that I would wake up. I guess I blacked out for a minute or two or something, because when I woke up the other doctor was yelling at him, telling him that he was pushing too hard. I liked her. She gave me painkillers when no one was looking, tried to make it easier on me. Bastion got rid of her, though, when he caught on." Her eyes turned inward, "They left me alone, until the doctor could get the readings he wanted, then they started again."

Lila looked at the clock on the wall, dismayed at the time. They'd actually gone over this session, Jubilee's ride was no doubt waiting in the foyer. She didn't say anything, but Jubilee's eyes tracked hers, then she stood, "Guess times up for today?"  


Jubilee was silent during the ride home, even though Bobby tried his best to keep her cheerful. It took him almost thirty minutes to realize that his passenger was not simply ignoring his bad puns, she was also ignoring his very presence. The car might as well have been automatically driven for all the attention she showed him. She sat, arms folded over her chest, burning a hole into the dashboard with her stare.

Bobby sighed before focusing his attention on the road, willing his hands to release their grip on the steering wheel. The jubilee he had known was so full of life that she would be talking a mile a minute, fill of taunts and ideas on how to turn Hank's hair pink enough to remain that way for the rest of the day. The small, silent child next to him was none of those things. The flame that had burned so brightly in her, that had made both the professor and Logan smile with what he would call embarrassed exasperation- something that he hadn't seen from either before her arrival- was extinguished, dead to its embers, without even the barest hint of smoke to signal that something had once been there.

Jubilee was silent, fuming to herself. Why had she told that bitch those things? Things that she didn't even like to admit to herself. They had just spilled out, after being contained too long, at the fist sign that she might understand, truly understand.

'Was probably lying to me the whole goddamned time' Jubes thought to herself, even as something inside her clamored against that thought. There had been something in the other woman's eyes, a pain that was hidden, but still there.

Jubilee stiffened at the thought, killing the small flame of trust that was beginning to grow inside her. She'd trusted once, when she was a child, and her parents died, leaving her alone, living on the streets with nothing but a pretty face to get by. She'd trusted again, worming her way into the X-Men, desperate for the sense of family that they exuded at all times, and had watched as those she loved either betrayed her or died, first Ilyanna, then Peter. Sat back as they'd treated her like a small child that couldn't understand anything, no matter what she did or said. She'd trusted Emma, despite her frigid exterior, trusted her , to some extent, to protect her from the monsters that seemed to haunt her wherever she went, and Everett had died because of it.

She shook her head slightly. Trusting hurt too much for her to ever try it again.

//Logan? Can you come to the Danger Room for a moment?//

Charles sent out the silent mental call from the control room of the simulation. Cerebro had alerted him to the fact that someone was in the Danger Room using Beasts override codes. Since Beast was in his lab with Cecilia, that left only one person.

Said person was currently working herself into a silent frenzy on an alpha program. Since she had returned, Jubilee had been barred from the Danger Room until they received an all clear from Hank.

"What's up, Chuck?" Logan asked from around his cigar, then almost swallowed it when he looked through the observation booth windows. "What in flamin' hell is she-"

//Just watch Logan,// Charles sent, calming the building rage in the man, //Cerebro will stop the program at my command.//

Logan watched, and was stunned into silence, what few choice phrases he would have said dying on his tongue as he watched the young woman. During exercises, Jubilee was usually bubbly, filled with wisecracks, taunting the neutral computer, and her opponents, in an attempt to make them loose their cool. In spite of all her training she still held an awkward grace that allowed her to be tagged easily. There was nothing of that woman in what he was watching. Whatever gloves she had been using for the past few years were off. She fought, hand to hand, with nothing but the sai he had given her for her fifteenth birthday and an assortment of stars and throwing knives. The spandex training outfit she wore was torn in places, numerous wounds releasing threads of blood that stained the yellow material a lurid rust color.

Logan watched as she dispatched everything the simulation threw at her with deadly precision, controlled actions that he didn't believe his Jubilee was capable of. He'd once called her shào-lóng*, little dragon, when she'd tried for three straight hours to throw him when he was teaching her basic karate without giving up. Now the 'little' was erased from his estimation of her. This was something he expected to see out of Betsy, or himself, not the little girl that had found a way into his heart. The sight of her, so cold, so ruthless, chilled something in him as she threw one knife, the metal projectile lodging in the neck of her attacker.

The blood didn't even faze her.

"What's goin' on, Chuck?" the words were almost a whisper as he watched one of the robots explode without her touching it in a rain of rainbow sparks. He recognized the sound of her powers, the high pitched whine that reminded them so much of fireworks, but he hadn't known she was able to use them without physical contact.

Charles barely heard Logan, so intent was he on his young charge. He could feel the anger and hurt rolling off her in waves, a barely contained flood of emotion that began shortly after she entered the mansion. He'd tracked her as she prowled the house, finally setting her sights on the danger room. He'd been surprised when she'd overridden Cerebro and began running the sequence they were watching. At that point his contact lowered to a minimum and he decided to seek her out.

Logan looked away from the scene below them and focused on the counter, eyes widening when he saw how long the program was running, and its setting. An alpha program was just short of lethal, and could be extremely dangerous, even with the failsafe programs in gear. Jubilee had been running it for almost twenty minutes. "You're lettin her-"

"No, I did not. She overrode Cerebro with one of Beasts commands. When the program rolled through a second time it alerted me to what she was doing. I'd hoped she was running a calming simulation of some sort, but I was mistaken."

Charles stopped talking when a piece of another robot was blown hard enough to crash against the unbreakable glass, more then thirty feet off the sequence floor. "She is working off everything that has been building inside her since her return. I thought you might want to see this."

Logan said nothing, though he conveyed his thoughts clearly. This was the last thing in the world he wanted to see. Every blow, every turn, hardened something inside her, took something away. He knew, because he'd been there himself more times than he could count.

"Im going in." He said, turning towards the door.

Charles didn't argue, he knew there wasn't any use. Logan would do what he wanted, and this time he couldn't think of a reason to tell him not to. 

Jubilee didn't hear the doors open, didn't hear anything but the sounds of the projections and droids around her. She watched them die, spouting fake blood that was oddly warm to the touch, and didn't care. Ten minutes after coming home she'd managed to work herself into a fit, barely escaping her room before she took a bat to it. She hated everything in it, everything that represented the person she had been, the person she never would be again. For the past few months she watched as the pieces of that person fell away, revealing something black and twisted inside her, something that she knew would never go away.

She left her room, looking for something to distract her from her rage. Logan was the first thing that popped into her mind, and she found him. Flirting with Jean. For the barest of moments a blood red haze swam over her eyes, but she blinked it away, leaving the room as silently as she had entered it. It didn't occur to her that Scott was barely ten feet away, or that both Rogue and Orroro were in the room as well, all she saw were Logan and Jean, and she'd wanted to kill them both.

This, at least, made her feel better, gave her an outlet for her rage. She'd watched Logan when he went into one of his fits and trashed the room, and understood for the first time what he was feeling, truly understood. The screams around her, the burn of the lasers as they lightly scored her skin, made her feel something other than anger and nothingness and fear for the first time in longer than she wanted to remember.

"Jubes!"

She heard her name over the cacophony around her, and ignored it. Maybe if he saw enough of what she was doing, he would get the message and leave her the hell alone.

"Jubilee!"

God damn-it. "Go away, Wolvie!" 'Still calling him by that stupid name,' she said to herself, launching a star at another projection with barely contained fury.

"Jubilation!" When she didn't answer, he raised his voice, "Cerebro, end simulation!"

Immediately, the crowd of people around them disappeared, leaving only the blown apart pieces of the droids littering the metal panels of the floor.

"Computer, begin simulation!" The room flickered for a moment, but didn't respond beyond that. Jubilee turned to Logan, "Get out."

He didn't move beyond reaching a hand out to her, "Jubes, you're gonna hurt yourself. You shouldn't have been in here in the first place, let alone without a spotter."

Jubilee didn't back down, "What do you care? If I needed someone I would have asked!" She batted away his offered hand, her sai scoring the back for a moment before his healing factor kicked in. He looked stricken, and it pleased her. She wanted him to hurt, wanted him to bleed. "Get out." She repeated, slowly, menacingly.

//Jubilee, please. Logan is only trying to-//

Charles winced as the doors to her mind slammed shut, leaving him outside her defenses. He tried to push gently, but the surface of her mind skittered away, and he knew that the only way for him to end what he felt building himself was to cause her harm by forcefully entering her mind. And that would kill him, because too much had already been forced on her.

//Jean, Scott, I need you in the danger room. NOW// He felt the start at the importance he asserted into the word, but he didn't care. He needed to control the situation as fast as possible. //Hank, I need you up here with a sedative, ASAP. You as well Cecilia.//

"Jubes, I'm only trying to-"

"I said GET OUT!"

She moved fast, faster than Logan would have thought after such a punishing routine. She hit him, knocking him backwards more from the surprise than anything else. Before he could react she rolled under his arm, stabbing him in the liver and twisting cruelly before moving out of his range.

Logan contained himself, even as his claws itched to be released. He watched her warily now, looking into her eyes. Something impinged on the deep blue, something he had too much practice with controlling, with wrestling under his grasp.

Practice he knew she didn't have.

"Jubes, I'm not gonna fight you, I just want to-"

"FUCK YOU!" when she moved again, Logan was ready, dodging to the side and hitting her arm, sending a sai flying further into the room. It pained him to do it, but he didn't want either of them to get hurt. He could smell the anger on her, and beneath it, something deeper, a pain and rage that was building toward insanity.

//Whatever you're gonna do Chuck, you better do it pretty fuckin fast,// he said, dodging a throwing knife and a star, wincing at the force with which they hit the walls. So far she was only using her weapons, which relieved him. Logan had no wish to be burnt pieces for the automatic cleaning sequence to pick up.

When Jubilee leaped again Logan was prepared to catch her and wrestle her under control, but she stopped in midair several feet from him, her weapons belt sliding from around her waist, the sai wrenched from her hand.

Jean was shocked, "Jubilee, what are you doing?" she asked, trying to keep her tone gentle and unaccusatory. 

If Logan's presence had angered her, Jeans enraged her even further, but on that rage came fear, fear because she was trapped, her arms and legs weren't responding to her, she had to get away, she had to-

//LET GO// the mental shout tore through the room before there was a bright flash and the smell of burning skin. Jean was holding her hand, which was covered in blisters, when the flash ended, and Jubilee was curled in a corner of the room, watching them with the wariness of a predatory animal.

"Jubilee, please, we need you to calm down," Charles said, still blinking to remove the black spots from his vision. He had cleared to door just in time to be hit by the blinding radiance. What few thoughts he gleaned off the child were basic, needs to run, to get away, and he feared that she would either hurt herself, or hurt them, before they could subdue her.

"Jubilee," he repeated, his voice soft, "its me, Charles, Baldy. We're not going to hurt you, I promise," he kept talking as he felt Beast taking aim. "Calm down. No one here is going to hurt you, we just want to make sure that you're alright." Behind him, he could feel Jeans pain, both mental and physical. Jubilee had swatted her, hard, and Jean had been unprepared. It would be another minute before she was collected enough to help in the situation with something other than brute force.

That was time they wouldn't have. Suddenly, Jubilee tried to bolt past him, but had misjudged the distance. Charles caught her arm, using her momentum to spin her around, facing away from him. She landed roughly in his lap, his arms holding hers close to her body as she kicked into the air.

"LET GO A ME! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO!" Jubilee was screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to use her weight to pull herself out of the mans grasp, but it held firm. "GET THE FUCK OFF!" Barely a second later something pricked her arm, and she felt a warmth flood her system, and then there was nothing.


	4. Deeper Driftings

An hour later Charles was in his study, impatiently drumming his fingers on the desk

An hour later Charles was in his study, impatiently drumming his fingers on the desk. Hank and Cecilia had taken Jubilee to the Medlab, but not before checking the dosage they had given her, and adding to it. Neither had a wish for Jubilee to awaken and begin her antics again, especially not in the lab, where there were too many flammable liquids near.

"Would anyone care to tell me what that was about?"

Charles looked at Scott, who was at the moment pacing near the back row of books. Jean was resting in a room upstairs, a combination of the telepathic tag she'd received and the painkillers that Hank had given her.

"It seems that Jubilee has managed to tap into her telepathic abilities," Charles answered.

Storm raised an eyebrow, "I thought she would have some years yet before she would be able to access them."

Charles sighed, "So did I. But we have all seen what high levels of stress can do to hasten the emergence of mutant abilities. She managed to do a passable copy of a psi bolt. Normally Jean would hardly have felt it, but she was unprepared for a telepathic attack."

Scott stopped pacing, "Where would she have learned that? I thought Emma said-"

Charles held up a hand, "Neither Emma or myself have been teaching Jubilee maneuvers of this nature. It is possible that she managed to feel' her way into it, for lack of a better word. She has been in close proximity to Jean, Emma and I when we have used such a tactic. For someone who is latently telepathic it would be easy to feel what we were doing, though considerably harder for her to employ it."

"Monkey see monkey do," Gambit said quietly.

Charles nodded.

" What about what she was doin'. Chuck?" Logan asked quietly. " An how she was doin' it?"

The X-men turned questioning glances to Xavier. None of them had yet to see the recording of Jubilee's workout'.

Charles settled farther into his hover chair, "We have all known that instead of pushing herself, Jubilee's main purpose in her training was learning to control her abilities, when to use what amount of force. I believe that when Everett was synched into her abilities he was able to control them to the degree that we witnessed today." He said the boys name with a hint of regret and sorrow that was not lost on anyone in the room.

"With Emma's help," Bobby pointed out.

Charles sighed again, "It would only be a matter of time before she reached that level herself. From all reports she once destroyed a house in China of some size with one blast from her powers. If anything, her display today was mild, but surprising."

"When will we see this tape?" Elizabeth asked.

Charles moved from behind his desk. "I have called Emma and Sean, asking that they come to the mansion so they can review the tapes with us. Jubilee is their student-"

"Fine lot they did lookin' out for er," Logan mumbled.

"Be that as it may, if Jubilee is going to rejoin Generation X, if she wishes to, they will need to be appraised of the situation."

Just short of thirty mintues later the low whine of a jet announced the arrival of Emma and Sean. Charles moved to greet them, but stopped short when he say the rest of Generation X following.

"I thought I asked that you leave the rest of the team out of this," he said as he shook Sean's hand.

Sean rubbed one hand on the back of his neck, "Aye, that ya did, but they didnae kin to that."

The they' were currently clustered together near the ramp of the jet, looking expectantly at their teachers. Charles didn't need to scan their minds to know their resolve, it was written on their faces.

Emma Frost glanced sideways at Sean before stepping in, " Chamber picked up on my distress when I received your message," she said by way of explanation, " I have become too lax in keeping my shields up. He alerted the rest of them."

Before he could answer a telepathic scream cut through them, one loud enough to catch Chamber unaware and bring him to his knees. It continued for a moment before abruptly cutting off.

//Hank? Cecilia?// Charles sent out, trying to keep himself calm.

//We're still alive, barely,// Hank answered.

//What happened?//

"This definitely complicates matters," Charles said, rubbing the bridge of his nose where a migraine was steadily building momentum. Nearly five hours since Jubilee's telepathic scream alerted them to the gravity of her situation everyone who could be called home was occupying his study. 

Emma nodded in agreement, "It would appear that Jubilee has dug herself in deeper than she can climb out."

The gathering of both teams in the study severely limited the space in the room, and at the moment all were crowded around Charles' desk, looking at the psi-prints that Cerebro had made concerning Jubilee.

"Someone wanna tell the rest of us what all dese spikes mean?" Angelo asked.

The crowd around him finally proved too much, "If everyone would please take a seat, I would be more than happy to," Charles said, letting only a hint of his aggravation tinge his voice. Once everyone was settled he began, "The spikes are a representation of the amount of psychic energy that a given telepath exerts on the astral plane, the height is the amplitude of that energy."

"Meaning," Hank interrupted from his perch on the ceiling fan, "That all of Jubilation's psychic centers are thrown wide open."

"And the scream?" Monet asked.

"That was a result of Cecilia and I being in the room with her. It appears that she cannot stand to have anyone near her without causing substantial pain, at least until she is able to deal with the telepathic input." He pushed his wire rim glasses further onto his nose, "From what we are able to ascertain, Jubilee is close to a beta level telepath in raw power, but in practice, will more than likely fall short of that."

The ruffling of Warren's feathers betrayed his concern, " What kind of pain?"

"Imagine someone stabbing you in his head with red hot spikes, repeatedly, without letting up for even a moment," Jean said, her voice haunted. Jubilee's condition was too similar to the one she had suffered when she first came to the mansion for her comfort.

Scott looked to his wife in concern, "You shouldn't even be up after what happened earlier," he said quietly.

"If I may ask, what exactly happened that had you calling the academy?" Emma asked. Charles had been sketchy at best, concern for Jubilee taking his attention away from his task. He'd planned to explain when they arrived, but events were spiraling out of control at a speed that astonished him.

"I think it would be better if you all saw what started this chain of events," he said, inserting a tape into the media center of his office.

The twenty-five minutes of tape caught everything. When Jubilee began screaming in his arms he wished for nothing more than the recording to be a silent one. The sheer terror in her cries struck him, adding to the roiling pain in the pit of his stomach. A feeling shared by many in the room, punctuated by the "Sweet Mary" whispered by Sean.

"How is she doing now?" Emma asked, no emotion in her voice.

"Stable." Hank answered, " We have her on a steady Valium drip to keep her unconscious, at least until the professor can deal with her telepathic abilities. The wounds she sustained from her exercise were taken care of by the Shi'ar healing unit. Because of her past experiences, we opted out of using the Genoshan collar." Hanks expression darkened. "Access is restricted to the Professor, Cecilia, and myself until we pull her out of this."

Fifteen minutes later Charles entered the Medlab. The lights were dimmed, the stillness broken only by the quiet beeps of the many pieces of machinery around the room. He could see Jubilee's small frame laying on one of the beds, a darker form sitting next to her, holding her hand. Charles had to strain his ears, but he could make out the softly sung lullaby.

"Fermer votre yeux, peu une. Vont à sommeil, peu une. Songer le temps c'est voici, tellement prendre pas de redouter. MOI seront voici, partout dans les soir."*

"Professuer," Gambit said, laying Jubilee's hand on the bed, "T'ought de petite would like some comp'ny, non?"

Charles nodded. Gambit would be no threat to the delicate psyche of the girl. He often found it something just shy of impossible to detect the Cajun when he didn't want to be. An untrained mind like Jubilee's would be unable to detect him even if he was dancing on top of the heart monitor.

Closing his eyes, Charles gently pushed himself past the defenses of Jubilee's mind, stepping lightly so that she would feel little, if anything. The slightest shiver went through him as he felt the extent to which her mind was laid open. He could feel the cold against Storms skin as she walked the grounds, the burn of the cigar smoke Logan was inhaling, and a thousand other emotions from the people above them, though the distance muted the effect until it was only background chatter in his mind. Carefully, Charles began building the defenses she would need to leave the seclusion of the Medlab. He pictured her abilities as a treasure chest, and slowly built a wall of stone around them, thick enough to keep them safe. When he was finished he exited as quietly as he had entered, opening his eyes to find Remy staring at him.

"She goin' be fine?" He asked quietly, red on black eyes filled with concern.

Charles let his eyes meet Remy's for a moment, before answering, "I honestly cant tell you."

*The words to the lullaby are : "Close your eyes, little one. Go to sleep, little one. Dream time is here, so have no fear. I'll be here throughout the night."  



	5. Darkest Night

Jubilee sat up in the bed and looked around the almost empty medlab. She considered it 'almost' because Hank passed out on a cot in the corner couldn't really be considered a living entity. For the past ten minutes she had sat there, listening to his soft snoring, before deciding to get up. A week had passed since her last 'episode', as she took to calling them, but the professor insisted that she remain in the medlab for further testing. Not that she minded very much. At least here she could live in the relative peace of the humming machines, machines that did not look and judge, that didn't ask questions to which she didn't know the answer. Machines just sat there waiting for someone to come along and mess with them, and she liked that just fine.

Silently, Jubilee walked towards the sliding doors that led to the elevator, and headed for the ground floor. The cold metal tile burned her feet, but she didn't care. The pain was good in her opinion. It was one of the few things that let her know she was still alive.

The doors opened and she stepped into the foyer. The house was dark since it was past three in the morning. On weekdays Scott insisted on early morning training exercises, meaning that all but the heartiest members of the team would be sleeping. The heavy furniture loomed like darker masses against the shadows, and she could almost picture herself sitting on the couch, coke in hand, bowl of popcorn on her lap as she made Logan watch another hour of Celebrity Deathmatch.

Silently, she took the stairs two at a time, then glided through the halls before she was stopped short by a light under the professors door.

'Curiouser and curioser,' she thought, then mentally slapped herself. Now she was starting to talk like Hank.

'Next thing you know I'll be spouting something like the anticular method of chopping cheese cubes,' she thought, before moving past the door and heading into the west wing.

Charles waited until he felt Jubilee drift further away before moving. He knew what time it was, knew that she had awakened a short while ago in the Medlab before plotting her escape into the upper levels. Her mind was clear. Clearer than it had been for months, and it was that calm clarity that frightened him. After the seething turmoil that rolled through her since her rescue it was eerie, unsettling. He was wary to contact her however, since she responded badly to that small invasion on her person.

//Professor, Jubilee has-//

//I know, Jean// Charles sent. //She's heading for her room.//

The telepathic nod Charles received was enough, and he broke the link between them. Ever since she had been tagged, Jean had become more sensitive to Jubilee and her moods. Often, she was the one who brought the girl her meals during the day, though to his knowledge, Jubilee hadn't spoken a word to her.

Jubilee gasped as the cold water hit her skin, teasing the tender areas left from her Danger Room exercise. It felt good though, and she stood under the spray for several minutes before turning the dial to hot. Grabbing the Herbal Essence Shampoo she ran it through her hair, scrubbing at her scalp before working on the hair itself. Almost as if in a trance she watched the clumps of soap fall to the floor and swirl down the drain, swept away by the running water. For long moments she stood there before rinsing her hair and adding the conditioner. That done, she tied it up and began washing herself, letting the loofa glide over her gently.

'Hurry up, Bastion wants her nice and clean.'

The words were so real that they made her jump and drop the sponge. For several seconds Jubilee looked around wildly, desperately trying to pinpoint the voice, before she realized that there was no way Johns could be there, she had watched his chest explode as shrapnel from the exploding terminal shot into him, silencing him forever. She was home again, whatever that meant.

Shaking off the chill that invaded her, Jubilee picked up the sponge and began washing again, this time scrubbing her skin until it turned pink before moving on. That done, she attacked the stubble that had grown in her 'recovery'. The hair proved no match for shaving cream and a razor, and soon her legs and armpits were devoid of even the slightest bit of hair. 

"No reason to look like the Wolfman," Jubilee said out loud as she rinsed her hair. The long locks fell almost to the center of her back. A year ago she decided that she needed a change, and abandoned the long-on-top, short-on-bottom look that had become her trademark.

Her blue eyes ran over the dark blue tile, a far cry from the white stall she had been shoved in the one time she was bathed during her captivity. Sighing, she reached up and turned the spout to message and turned up the heat, then began washing again, but this time with a vengeance. Her skin turned red and tingled as she attacked it, dropping the soft loofa and replacing it with a back brush, but she didn't care. The only thought running through her mind was that it she scrubbed hard enough, and long enough, she would finally be clean again.

After long minutes, Jubilee dropped the brush, barely hearing the hard crash of the wood on the ceramic tile over her own heartbreak. With a sob she fell back against the tiles, crossing her hands over her stomach, feeling the flatness of it, wondering for the briefest moment what it would have been like to have something inside her, something that needed her. With another shaky cry her arms were crossed over her chest as she slid to the floor, trying to convince herself that it was water and not tears that blurred her vision.

By the time Jubilee emerged from her shower the water ran cold and her lips were blue. Naked, she padded across her room, leaving water-dark footprints on the hardwood floor. She stopped at her dresser. Looking in the mirror, she gathered her hair at her nape with one hand and picked up a pair of scissors with the other. A quick snip between her hand and her neck and her hair fell to the floor. She repeated the action in the front, cutting in front of two fingers, and then on the sides. Grabbing a towel, she scrubbed herself dry, then headed for her closet. Underwear, black stretch pants, and a gray knitted sweater that was almost five sizes too big were her chosen garb.

Dressed, Jubilee returned to the mirror and picking up her brush, she quickly brushed out her new style. It was shorter than she'd ever cut it, no hair longer than three inches, and it suited her just fine. After slipping on a pair of loafers, Jubes headed for the roof. Previously, the highly sloped roof had been the hiding place of Remy only, since he was the only one crazy enough to risk his life by walking the razor edge tiles. One slip, and he would fall on the slippery shingles and slide off. It was a place where Jubilee was sure she would find privacy at this time of night.

She was wrong.

On the far edge of the roof she could barely make out a shape in the moonlight. She watched as the figure moved, and a sudden bright red point of light appeared out of the darkness. 'Gambit', she thought, but then paused as she moved closer. The form was too broad, the hair too short. And then it hit her.

"Cyclops?"

The word brought a quick cough and a rapid waving of hands before she got an answer, "Jubilee?"

Relieved, she began walking forward again. So Scott, their resident Golden Boy, who was against Gambit doing any of the miriad of things that caught his attention, was a smoker.

"Late night, Cyclops," she said as she settled down next to him. Her legs swung off the edge, leaving her perched on the edge of a fifty foot drop. It would be so easy for her to simply slide.

"I could say the same for you," Scott answered sheepishly.

Jubilee stared at him for long seconds before asking, "So, now that I know, what do you say to letting me bum one?"

A dubious look was her answer, and for a moment she thought he was going to deny her, 'And launch into a speech on the dangers of smoking, hypocrite.' she thought. So she was surprised when a shiny package was handed to her, along with a silver lighter.

"I've been trying to quit," Scott said while lighting up another one.

"For how long?"

"Ten years."

Jubilee was impressed. To her knowledge, the only vice Scott ever allowed himself was an occasional drink at Harry's. That he had been smoking the entire time she had lived at the mansion, and that she didn't even realize it, were leading her mind on a path of new ideas about their leader.

"Jean doesn't know," Scott said, taking another drag and letting the smoke drift out with his words. "I'm down to a pack a month."

Jubilee nodded. The smoke burned her lungs, but she was already feeling light headed. Like most mutants, she had a 'anything goes' physiology, one that was extremely sensitive to tobacco in general, and nicotine in particular. The feeling spread throughout her body, and soon she felt like she was floating.

"Hey," A strong arm wrapped around her, but Jubilee didn't care. Cigarettes had pretty much the same effect on her as Xtasy had on other people, and at the moment, the fact that she was barely a moment from falling from a tall building wasn't her concern.

A large, MALE arm squeezing her was.

***Where ya goin girl?***

Somewhere in Jubilee's hazed mind she was aware that it was Scott who was holding her, trying to keep her from falling, but that part was too far away, and the smell of Johns' cheap cologne too real at the moment. Vaguely she was aware that she was fighting, that someone was trying desperately to hold onto her, but that wasn't something she was worried about, not while she was slipping further and further into oblivion.

Sorry it took so long to get this out. I wont have my own computer again until September, so I have to rely on snatching time on other peoples computers. Hope you enjoyed it!!!  


Love and stuff

Writegirl.


	6. Falling Angels and Severed Dreams

For an eternity that seemed balanced on the head of a pin, Jubilee teetered on the edge, then she was falling, but she didn't care. The terracotta tiles that sped to greet her were entrancing, swirling dots of color that looked like they might part and let her enter a dark sea underneath when she hit them. The thought was appealing, so much so that not a single sound escaped her as she fell.

Then she was caught up short, her nose a bare inch from hitting the tiles as an iron grip latched onto her ankle.

"Ah don't know what Hanks been tellin' you down there, sugah, but flyin' aint exactly ya strong point."

Rogue lessened her grip, but kept Jubilee suspended as she landed. The frantic message she'd received from the professor left her with little time to do anything but fly from her side of the house to the other, just in time to see Scott loose his tenuous grip on the struggling girl.

Said girl was at the moment staring at a bare thigh, with only the slightest hint of a hem teasing her vision. The thought was so funny that she began laughing, a shrill, unsettling sound that echoed off the courtyard.

Warily, Rogue put Jubilee down, moving a slight distance away from her. She hated to think that the girl could be suicidal, but it was a definite possibility. She had watched the quicksilver moods Jubilee flew into over the weeks, one moment despondent, the next strangely calm. She had gone through the same thing herself after absorbing someone, and it was something she would never wish on anyone.

"Jubilee, you all right gal?" The question was soft, a bare whisper in the silence that permeated the courtyard.

"Sure, Roguie, never better." Jubilee said seriously, taking a step away from the woman. That was as far as she went, because in the next her legs buckled under her. Rogue caught her in time to keep her from falling, but she was nervous. She hadn't had time to put anything on, and her bare hands were coming close to touching the girl.

"I take it Jubilee decided she needed some air," said a new voice behind them as Hank came upon the couple, a stern look on his face. Gingerly, he extricated Jubilee from Rogue's grasp and sat her on the ground, taking her pulse, checking her pupils with a small pin light, which brought a groan of protest from his patient.

"Jesus Christ, is she all right?!" The question came from Scott, who was stopped by Rogues arm before he could run over Hank and Jubilee.

"She's all right, sugah. Right Hank?"

A tisk came from the large man, before he turned to them. "As far as I can tell, she has ingested something that is having a profound affect on her motor skills and higher cerebral functions. In lay terms, people, she's as high a kite in July."

That diagnosis brought another peal of giggles from the girl, and made Scott turn pale. "Do you care to share with the rest of us what you know about the current situation?" Hank asked, picking Jubilee up.

Scott looked abashed. "I was on the roof, and she asked for a cigarette, so I gave her one. She only took two hits off the thing before she started freaking out."

This information brought surprised looks from both Hank and Rogue before a yelp from the former brought them out of their shocked surprise. "My fur, young lady," Hank began, "Is not removable."

"Nope, but it sure is soft," Jubilee answered, snuggling further into Hanks warmth.

Before she promptly threw up on him.

___________________________________________________________________

Charles rubbed the back of his neck, where a large cramp was presently doing its best to aggravate him. "Hank, your asking me to lock Jubilee down like she is some kind of criminal."

Hank shook his head, "Nothing of the sort, professor, but we must consider her physical health. She is becoming more and more self-destructive. What would have happened if Rogue had been a micro-second too late tonight? We would have been discussing funeral arrangements rather than what to do to keep this situation from repeating itself."

Charles wanted to deny what Hank was saying, but it was true. Whether she had meant to or not, Jubilee had come perilously close to killing herself less than five hours ago.

"Her physical health is not my main concern, Hank," Charles started. " She needs to feel free to come and go as she sees fit, to feel in control of herself. Without this, she may as well forget about ever recovering. Keeping her relegated to the Medlab or her room would achieve neither of those objectives."

Hank sighed, "Would you rather find her again, except this time the blood will be coming from her wrists instead? She is leaving us precious little choices, Charles. Jubilee's mental health will be nothing if her physical form is destroyed."

For a moment Xavier felt an almost uncontrollable urge to bang his head on the oak desk in front of him a few times in the hope that it would wake him up. The whole night seemed to be one huge nightmare, one from which there would be no waking.

"For the time being I can keep tabs on her with my powers, not to mention Jean. If I feel for any reason that this is not working, I will seriously consider placing her under house arrest."

The tone in which that statement was delivered brooked no argument, so Hank didn't offer one. His only hope was that Charles wouldn't end up killing the girl with his trust.

____________________________________________________________________

**Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupidstupidstupidstupid**

The words ran through Jubilee's mind as she paced the Medlab. She knew what would happen next. They would keep her locked up down here like Sabertooth, a ghost in a shell of metal and wires. That thought, more than anything else, terrified her. She would rather die.

"I highly doubt it will come to those extremes, child." Charles said as he entered the Medlab, Hank behind him. He noticed the change in her immediately. She seemed more fragile than she had in all the months since she had returned to them. The shortness of her hair only emphasized the delicacy of her cheekbones, made her pale skin palid, an effect which was added too by the darkness of the clothes she wore.

"Then what's the verdict?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest.

//This//

Jubilee was unprepared for the sudden jolt into her mind. Instead of standing in the middle of the chrome Medlab she was staring into a deep, vast ocean. She could feel the sand beneath her feet, its warmth, but that was all. Where she stood was strangely devoid of anything. There were no gulls circling overhead, no breeze, even the waves that hit the shore were silent.

"This is the choice, Jubilation." Charles said next to her, using her given name to show the gravity of his words. 

"What?" she asked.

"This is your mind, a vast ocean of emotions, memories, impressions. Everything you have accumulated in your years of living lie beneath those waves. That," he said, pointing to a point far off shore. Jubilee strained to see what he was pointing at, then found herself hovering over a maelstrom, the dark water swirling and lit from beneath by a sickly green light. "This, is where your most recent memories are, including those of your imprisonment and torture. I can calm this forever, rip these memories out of your mind. You wont remember anything that happened to you, at least not in detail. The nightmares, the flashbacks, all of them will be gone."

Jubilee looked beneath her feet. It was so tempting, to let herself say yes, to simply forget. Isn't that what she wanted? To never remember what had happened to her, the smells, the feel of that violation? "What's the other choice?" she asked.

Back on the beach Charles answered, " You go back to your sessions with Lila, and work this out on your own. And this." He held out his hand, and in it was a necklace, a large circlet of diamonds and emeralds that sparkled in the weak sunlight. "It's a telepathic tether, of sorts. It will allow me to keep closer tabs on you while you are about the grounds. It will not allow me to control you in anyway, or influence your thinking."

Jubilee was skeptical, "What do I need it for?"

"In the short time you have been about, you have nearly killed yourself several times, even if you were unaware of it. This may simply be because of folly, or because of some unconscious desire you have to end your life. In either case, I'm afraid that I cannot trust you in your current state."

Jubilee bowed her head. So it was either the quick and dirty, or the long and clean? She knew what it cost the professor to give her that first choice. He was against ever going into someone's mind and changing their memories. He considered it the cruelest of violations. The one time he had ever done something even remotely similar to what he was offering, it had almost killed him inside. So what choice did she have?

Silently, Jubilee picked up the necklace and placed it around her neck, wincing slightly as she felt it clasp. Then it was gone.

" We can take it off whenever you like, Jubilee." Charles said when they returned to reality. "Just let me know."

Jubilee nodded, before turning around and sitting on the bed. Charles inclined his head before leaving, and Hank went into the small office he made in the back of the Medlab, leaving Jubilee to think of her decision.

____________________________________________________________________

"So, how do you feel now?" Lila asked. She had remained silent as Jubilee related the happenings of the past week. She felt they were making real progress. The young woman had told her tale without pause, plowing through her own emotions, offering cursory analysis of them. A far cry from the young woman who remained silent for the majority of her former sessions.

"Lost," was Jubilee's answer as she stared out the window, watching as it was obscured by rain. "I really don't know what to do."

Lila leaned forward. "I think the wisest people have to admit to themselves that they don't really know anything at all. And once your willing to admit that to yourself, you've got a head-start on everyone who still goes around thinking that they know all there is to know about everything."

Jubilee turned to Lila, " What did you do?" she asked.

Lila reclined in her chair, "I did something really harsh, Jubilee. I dealt. And that's something your going to have to do. You have to deal. You think you cant? You deal anyway. That's what living is about. Anyone who doesn't isn't really living to begin with."


	7. Dear Diary and other things

Dear Diary,

_Dear Diary,_

_The professor brought me this diary so that I could write down everything I was thinking. He said it would help me to understand my own emotions as they came, or something like that. I like it, he must have pulled out the credit card on this thing. It has a dark reddish-brown leather cover. There's a lot of gold ivy vines around the edges, and has my name embossed in silver on the cover. It has a lock on it too, shaped like a really big ivy leaf, and the key looks like an old skeleton key. He gave me this real cool crystal pen, the old kind that you have to dip in ink to keep writing, nubs (what a stupid name) and a book on calligraphy. The thing I like about it best is the paper. I think its hand made, as a matter of fact I think the whole thing is handmade, and it feels a little rough when you touch it, but its real soft, almost like fur. The edges are gold too. At first I didn't want to write in it because it was too pretty, then I thought, what the fuck, right? Its rude to not use something that was brought for you to use._

_Its been about a month since I fell off the roof. I can't even go up there anymore. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. The prof's been helping me with my psychic powers and stuff, teaching me to locate people just by feeling for their minds. I think its fun, at least I won't walk in on Hank while he's brushing again. I mean, I didn't know he had to brush the hair "there", though I have to admit I liked the free show, (Cece must be bowlegged by now.) but it was still pretty embarrassing. I can feel my leash' a little better now, not like its chaffing or anything. I just feels like a light veil, that's the closest comparison I can make of it. I have to admit the man has skills._

_Things are pretty quiet now, mostly because its almost two in the morning. I can almost feel the old man, he's in his study, still working on how he's going to find a contractor to build the new pool house, one that wont blab everything he hears and sees, and he's too nice to blind-side them. I like the idea, because the pool gets really cold around winter, and I have no intention of freezing my ass off if I don't have too, even with the heater. He's even springing for a ten foot jacuzzi. Kind of makes you wonder where he gets all his money, not that he tells us anything. Sometimes I think that he's this huge drug dealer that no one notices, because really, who's going to suspect a fifty-something upper class new yorker of selling coke. Then I slap myself, because he's as against doing stuff like that as you can get. From all reports he went ape when Bobby tried acid. (Though he didn't mind that much when he found some weed in Hanks drawer, hmmmmm.)_

_Lila was right about one thing, I had to start dealing again. I mean, come on, I'd been in situations like that one before, just not as harsh. I used to sell myself to get passages on ships, money, food, anything before I met up with Logan, and not all of the johns were exactly the nice type. I guess its just that before I had a choice, you know. I could take it or leave it. I dealt with that, just like I dealt with loosing my parents, and with everything else my shitty life had to throw at me. So life's tough, no shit Sherlock, you have to get over it. I'd gotten so used to things being kind of fair that I forgot the cardinal rule in life, that its not fair, that its down right terrible, and the sooner you learn that, the easier it gets to live it. I'd been taking everything for granted, thinking that I would always be safe, that nothing could touch me if I didn't want it to. I mean, at least I recovered, I'm not some drooling idiot in the basement, I'm not homicidal, I wasn't horribly scared, at least not on the outside. There's nothing I have to see every time I look I the mirror that lets me know what happened._

_So what happens now? I don't know, and for the first time I actually feel good about that. I don't have to worry about being upstaged because I don't know something that someone else does. I still get nightmares sometimes, and sometimes I think I see or hear one of them, but even that's fading. Memories are designed that way, so once I stopped harping on them, they went away. The ticking is taking a little longer, though, but now I can go for a whole day without hearing it. The professor even went so far as to silence every ticking clock in the mansion (after I asked him)._

_Logan's thinking about taking me on another rode trip, and I'm kind of looking forward to it. Getting out and about again is something I haven't been real good at. I still panic if I'm in a large crowd by myself, but the professor says that's normal, he even scolded me when I said it was childish (I've been around him for too long, I'm using a word like scolding, ewwww). I'm getting better at touching, though. I can almost not jump if someone touches me and I don't know their going too. Just take it one day at a time, that's what both Lila and Baldy keep saying. I wonder if they know how alike they really are. Neither one will tell me what happened, and its just begging for someone to jump in and stir things up. Who knows, maybe I can get them back together. Neither one will admit it, but I think their both real lonely._

_Oh well, gotta run, soups on and storm's making her famous leg of lamb stuffed with rice and pine nuts. I just love that stuff._

_Talk to ya later,_

_Jubilation Lee_

_FIN_


End file.
